Digital Focus: Take Your Camera on Vacation

How to avoid theft and hassle when traveling, a top tool for managing images, fixing agents.

Dave Johnson

Feature: Digital Camera Travel Tips

It's that time of year again--the vacation days of summer. Every July, America packs its collective suitcase and heads for the beach, the Rockies, and that really big ball of twine somewhere in Minnesota. Even as I write this column, I'm packing the camera, some clothes, and a kid or two (don't worry, I poked holes in the suitcase) for a week in some warmer climes.

Note: Thanks, apparently, to a lack of shopping malls, theaters, and other forms of popular entertainment, there are really big balls of twine scattered throughout the Midwest. Darwin, Minnesota, appears to be home to the world's largest, which weighs in around 21,000 pounds. There are some fascinating pictures in Motel Magazine's "I Like Twine."

Planning your own getaway? Go fully prepared to capture it all on film with this week's guide to vacationing with your digital camera.

Getting Through the Airport

September 11th has had a profound effect on every aspect of air travel, and getting your digital camera through security is a little harder than it used to be. The most important thing to remember is that your camera needs to be fully functional when you arrive at the security line. You should be able to prove that it's a real camera by, at a minimum, showing an image on the camera's LCD display.

I've had some unusual experiences when traveling with electronics, and my travels have trained me to prepare for anything. I've had security personnel who had never seen a digital camera before and didn't want to let it though, since there was nowhere to install film. If that sort of thing happens, stay calm and polite and ask to see a supervisor. Then again, it's just as likely that the security folks won't ask to see the camera at all.

When it comes to X-ray machines, you've got a leg up on film travelers. While the new, high-powered machines can cloud undeveloped film (whether you've taken pictures on it or not), the machinery can't harm digital media like CompactFlash, Memory Stick, or Smart Media. Think twice about mailing your memory cards home, though--new anti-anthrax irradiation procedures can potentially damage the electronics in these devices.

Protecting Your Gear

Your digital camera represents a significant investment, and the last thing you need is for it to be lost or stolen while you're vacationing. Before you leave, consider how you're going to protect your gear.

Your camera bag, for instance, shouldn't be a theft magnet. Avoid cases with obvious Canon, Nikon, and Minolta logos. Instead, find a travel case that isn't obviously storing a camera. While you're at it, though, get one that has enough padding to let you handle it roughly--or even drop it--without damaging the camera's sensitive optics. And if you've never bothered with a camera strap, get one now. If your camera isn't secured around your neck, you're more likely to drop it.

Finally, look after your stuff during the trip. Keep this advice in mind: Don't leave your bags unattended, especially in the airport. Put your camera and other valuables out of sight--in the trunk of your rental car, not in the passenger compartment, for example. And since you will want to leave the camera behind on occasion, lock it in your hotel room's safe or entrust it at the front desk. Don't leave it lying loose in your room.

Pack the Essentials

Now for the good stuff: what to take. When I go on a trip that might yield once-in-a-lifetime photos, I tend to travel a little on the heavy side.

I recommend carrying two sets of rechargeable batteries and the charger itself--that way one set can be charging back in the hotel room while you're out for a day of shooting. Swap the batteries every night, even if you don't think you need to, so you start fresh each morning and never run low on juice during the day.

Don't forget a tripod. If you're worried about lugging a huge metal monstrosity with you, you'll appreciate the fact that many camera shops sell compact, portable models ideal for vacation trips. Some of my favorite vacation photos were taken at night. If you want to capture fireworks or cityscapes, your shutter speed will be too slow for you to hold the camera steady long enough. I'd also bring a 2X telephoto adapter, and, if you have room, a wide-angle adapter as well.

As for memory, there's no getting around the fact that more is better. If you have no way to download your images for safekeeping, bring as much memory as you can afford. A better alternative is a gadget like the MindStor, from Minds@Work. The MindStor is a battery-powered multigigabyte hard disk in a pocket-size case that stores data from your camera's memory cards. If you've got a MindStor, you can use the same memory cards over and over throughout your trip. The PCWorld.com Product Finder lists the MindStor in a several different capacities at prices starting around $260.

Photo Etiquette

Especially if you travel to a foreign country, be conscious of local photo etiquette. You might want to shoot a picture of a merchant in a local market, for instance, but it's the polite (and safe) thing to ask permission first. Sometimes locals will demand money to pose. If you run into folks like that, just keep moving. There are few photo opportunities worth the potential danger of publicly exchanging money in a strange place.

Be aware of places where photography is prohibited. The local military or police force may not allow certain locations or subjects to be photographed (you may not be allowed to take photos of people standing in food lines, for instance). And I'd avoid shooting pictures of military or para-military operations unless they're on display for tourists; in Honduras, for instance, I resisted the urge to photograph shotgun-bearing guards in front of ordinary shops. In other locations, like churches and historic sites, flash photography may be prohibited--but you can get some great photos with a long natural-light exposure.

Dave's Favorites: Portfolio 6

One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with digital photos is the challenge of managing the images on your hard disk. It's easy to end up with hundreds or even thousands of files--and then how do you find a specific photo from Uncle Ted's 1999 barbeque, or that shot of your cat playing the banjo?

Many image editors come with their own thumbnail browsers. The one in Jasc's Paint Shop Pro is just so-so, and I truly dislike Adobe Photoshop Element's image browser. If you're looking for a better way to manage your photos, consider Portfolio 6, my hands-down favorite--even though it's a little pricey. (Extensis sells it for $200.)

Portfolio 6 is a full-featured thumbnail browser that makes it easy to sort, categorize, and find images scattered across your hard disk. The program's coolest feature is FolderSync, which synchronizes folders on your hard disk with thumbnails in Portfolio. Add or remove images from FolderSync'd folders on your hard drive, and the changes are automatically updated in Portfolio's thumbnail view the next time you open the program.

Like any good browser tool, Portfolio lets you find images visually or by keyword. When you add pictures, it automatically extracts keywords based on the image's file name, so a photo called logs.jpg can be found by searching for "log." If you take a slew of pictures of a similar subject, you can save time by adding the same keywords to all of the pictures at once.

Portfolio puts a small utility called Portfolio Express in your System Tray--you can double-click on its icon to see your images in a resizable window on the desktop. When you find the image you want, just double-click it to open the file in your favorite image editor.

That's just scratching the surface. If you store your images on removable media (like CD-Rs, for instance), Portfolio tracks the media name and tells you which disc to insert to get a particular image. You can also create a Web page or QuickTime slideshow from images in your catalog.

To save a little money, you can use PCWorld.com's Product Finder to find the best prices. Last time I looked, I found Portfolio 6 for about $175--that's still an investment, but one that's worth every penny.

Q&A: Will Fixing Agents Preserve Digital Images?

Would it be possible, once a printed ink-jet photograph has dried, to use an acrylic spray with UV protection on the picture to further protect it? This is commonly done by professional photographers on professionally produced photographs, but I do not see why the practice couldn't be carried over to ink-jet photographs.

--Randy Burka, Spring, Texas

An excellent question, Randy, and it's one I've asked myself. In photo stores you can buy fixing agents that are meant to be sprayed onto photographic prints. The spray usually has an acrylic base and is designed to arrest fading and prevent other kinds of damage like moisture and smudging. The real question, of course, is will it work on ink-jet photos?

I've experimented with using fixing agents on digital prints, and so far these sprays seem to work. By "work," I mean that the prints didn't fade, melt, bubble, disintegrate, or color-shift hours after I applied the spray. But to know the long-term effects, you'd have to watch the photos for, well, years.

It's worth pointing out that while traditional acrylic sprays are the most common, I avoid those, since I suspect they aren't formulated to work with ink-jet inks. Instead, I look for sprays made specifically for ink-jet printers. I'm currently testing a product called Inkjet Fix from a company called Gepe. It costs about $18 a can.

Looking for a more definitive answer, I recently posed the question to one of the technical wizards at Epson. His response: "We recommend avoiding UV sprays since the effect on lightfastness of one color ink could be different than another ink, and that may actually lead to the visual acceleration of fading or color shifting." That sounds bad, and since I tend to use Epson inks for most of my printing, I think I'll heed his advice for now.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $10 and $100.

A gentle reminder, folks: We disqualify some really wonderful pictures every week because the submissions don't follow the rules. Be sure to include everything we ask for in your e-mail message, including a description of your picture and your complete contact information, or your entry is wasted!

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering please read the full description of the contest rules and regs.

This week's Hot Pic: "Path Less Traveled," by Maxine Snyder, Wolcott, New York

Maxine says, "Now that the weather has cleared, I've been 'wandering' on my lunch hour. I've found that some of the greatest shots come from the places where you wouldn't normally look!" She captured this photo with a Panasonic Palm Cam PV-DC 2590.

Hot Pic of the Month

Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For the month of June, we had so many great entries to contend with that it was almost embarrassing. In the end, the obvious winner was Mike Allred, who apparently risked life and limb to manipulate his digital camera while riding a bike down the campus streets at BYU. For his efforts, Mike has won a PC World CD-carrying case. As always, congratulations to all the other weekly winners. Your photos are excellent!

We want your feedback! Send your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself to comments@bydavejohnson.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in the weekly Q&A, send it to question@bydavejohnson.com.

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